Painting the Stairwell

 

The basement floor needs to be painted. It was rough when we moved in 25 years ago. Wear and water have made it worse. This summer, I told myself. It’s a big project; lots of stuff needs to be moved, cleaned, cleared out, replaced. Then we had a bout of Revenge Poop at the base of the stairs, and I bought a gallon of grey floor paint. I’ll just paint that small area, I thought. It will keep nasty scents from seeping into the bare cement floor. I cleared away the gallons of house paint and brooms, crowbars, and other tools stashed in the area, washed the floor, and painted. An improvement.

Project creep set in. Maybe I needed to paint the landing, too. That had also seen an occasional “accident” from the cat, which was mad that we were latching her in at night because a bear was wandering through town. After all, I already had the stairs blocked off so that the cat or one of us could not wander down accidently. I washed the landing. Then there were the stairs. They were also rough. And the gate was already up, I was wearing my painting clothes, the brush would need to be washed no matter how big the project….A good coat of paint goes a long way in improving a space.

This morning, I laid down a second coat of paint at the bottom of the steps, and then worked my way up. It’s not easy to paint up stairs—but there’s only one way out of a basement, so there I was, awkwardly perched two boards above the one I was painting. Each time I shifted positions, it looked better. Cared for. Cleaner. Warmer because it’s actually a nice shade of grey paint. As I worked, I thought about other spaces that could use a coat of paint. I was in a Portland restaurant yesterday that I remember as being a bit upscale, over on Hawthorne. It felt battered; there were old table scars on the walls and the bathroom drain screen was loose and rattling around the floor. The place could have used a coat of paint. All of Hawthorne, actually, could use a coat of paint. Like my basement, it has been hard used for 30 years and needs a bit of TLC.

Half an hour later, the first coat was down. I’ll need to come back for the second round and I will wait a few days before I move the furniture and tools back into place, but it looks good. So good that the walls and railing are now appearing a bit battered. But that is a job for this summer.

The Voyage Begun

 

               It is the end of Earth Week and the celebration has felt…underwhelming.  City and school events have been lackluster in engagement. One of my students observed “Well, people have lives to live and places to be” which is true, but makes me worry. How do we convey the urgency of this issue—and others—in a way that empowers people to take action, to take the power that we all hold, collectively, and turn it action at all levels of society? Because we are reading The Things They Carry, by Tim O’Brien, my mind turns to the idea of story.  Stories can save us, he says. Individually and, perhaps, collectively. So this is my Climate Change story for this year.

                The Voyage Begun, by Nancy Bond. Printed in 1981. I must have read it the winter it came out. I remember being chilly and I was often chilly in those years, living on my own, saving money by keeping the heat low. These were the years when the University of New Hampshire sent us home for an extra week of Winter Break because they would save so much money on heating fuel. That break, I spent several days spreading insulation in my mother’s attic. When we were done, the snow stayed on the roof rather than melting away.  One apartment I lived in had a base rate of heating paid by the landlord but we had to chip in if the costs went above a certain amount. I wore my great-grandmother’s shawl as I sat up in the kitchen, typing a paper for class, all winter. My roommate and I had an impressive collection of shared sweaters. Still, it was chilly.

                The novel is set on Cape Cod in the “near future”.  Having spent two winters on the Cape myself, I could relate to the landscape.  The energy crisis of the 1970’s has become permanent. Parts of the Cape are washing away—even though no one was talking about rising seas yet.  All of the summer homes have been abandoned and there are small gangs breaking in and robbing them. The local conservationist is considered a little crazy.   Only the permanent residents remain and they are struggling without the summer incomes. The setting is bleak.  A young man moves to Woods Hole where his father is climbing the administrative ladder; his mother is in deep denial about the level of the crisis and is not happy living so far away from the civilization that she remembers. The book comes together around the idea of community and working together in prickly partnerships that value some old skills, like wood boat building. The plot faded in my mind but the description of the world post energy crisis did not; the Boston Museum of Fine Arts was closed because they could not heat the space. I love the MFA.

                In 1981, we were not facing the climate crisis that we are today. Energy—yes. Jimmy Carter had put solar panels on the roof of the White House and was wearing a sweater, talking about turning down the thermostat. We knew, then, that there were limits on oil. And that, if we changed behavior, we would survive and even thrive.  If we did not, we were looking at a depleted world where more things were closed in winter than the UNH dorms for an extra week.  And this is where my mind returns when I think—when did I first become aware of the problem? This novel, set in a place that I knew and loved, washing into the sea because of our behavior. That is where the voyage began. And yours?

               

 

               

 

Staggered Germination

 

In January, I was reading the Fedco seed catalog—the best for seeds, prices, and entertainment. One of their informative paragraphs talked about the emergence of staggered germination. According to the catalog, plants that have been stressed during the summer months will produce seed that germinates over a longer period of time. Because of climate change, they are seeing this stress response  more often. It can be challenging, they observed, for commercial growers who depend upon consistent germination within a narrow timeframe in order to get their crops in the ground on time—which is also becoming more difficult with climate change. Interesting, I thought.

This April, I have seen this happening in my own greenhouse. I planted all of the tomato seed one afternoon and put both flats on the heating pads. For every variety of tomato, from several distributers, there has been staggered germination. A  little bit is normal; there are often two seedlings of slightly different sizes on one six pack cell. But this year, they were all different sizes. Some were almost trees while their neighbor was just breaking through with all heights in between. And a couple of varieties—the Evil Olive being one—took two weeks longer to germinate than any others. It makes it challenging to bump up the plants. Some pairs are deeply tangled in their roots but big enough for both to survive. Some are not. I popped three Long Keepers out of their six pack and left four behind to develop their roots a little more before the trauma of being repotted. I thought I would be able to consolidate the little ones into one or two six packs, but I couldn’t. They are just taking up precious space.

Even given the chaotic and packed nature of a greenhouse in April, I can’t complain. It will make the tomato give away a little trickier and maybe a week later—does anyone want to come back for the Evil Olive after they have their Sungolds? But my livelihood does not depend upon evenly timed germination.  By August, it won’t matter. I’ll be hauling in tomatoes every day for crockpot sauce. But it gave me something to consider while I worked this morning—both the thousands of way climate change is going to impact us that we do not even begin to understand and also the bit of hope lying within those seeds, as they adapt to a changing world.

April on The Road

 

April Fool’s Day was the day after Easter this year. I was walking to work, remembering the joy of Hot Cross buns and coconut cream pie, when the light hit me…its traveling time. The air was clear, and damp, and chilly, but I knew, in my bones, that if I just, as John Haitt suggests, Drove South with the one you love (or alone), I would hit the perfect traveling weather in one day’s drive.  I could sit in the doorway of the Ark and watch the light fade wearing just a sweatshirt. April is road trip time.  I almost turned around and headed home to pick up the Ark’s keys.

Long road trips are deeply embedded in my psyche. My parents embarked on one when I was eight; we were gone  from July until April because we had to stop for school and to make some money in Florida. When I was 29, I took three months off from work, bought my van, and drove south, via Cape Cod and Beaver Falls Pennsylvania, heading to New Orleans. The first day—which was April Fool’s Day,  a Monday and the day after Easter-- was eerie. I was exhausted from Easter week at the Bakery, there was no one else at the campground where I stayed the first night, and, despite packing maple syrup, tamari that spilled onto the shag carpet and gave the Ark a distinctive odor, and my wok, I neglected to bring along any food for an easy dinner OR the leftover coconut cream pie from the party the day before. I almost headed back to New Hampshire.

It took a week or so to find my rhythm, both for driving and meal planning, on my own which was the point of the entire adventure. As I observed in my journal of the trip—“it is a spirit journey to test myself and my ability to handle daily living and the occasional crisis on my own.”  I drove. I sang loudly. I read. I learned to cook beans on a propane stove and that mayo is far tougher than we think.  I hiked through our National Parks. I talked with strangers and made friends. I visited people along the way and had several riders, planned and unplanned, as well.  I was never afraid although I was occasionally lonely. A woman on her own, on The Road.

A few years later, living in Oregon, I needed to go home for a wedding. Once again, it was April. My roommate at the time thought I was crazy—why not just fly? No, I drove south, picked up my friend Sherrie, and we drove East together, taking the southern route.  She packed snacks and picked up local papers when we stopped for coffee in the mornings. We replaced the stove which had been stolen the year before in Seligman, Arizona on Route 66, which upped our cooking game from boiling water on a backpacking stove to being able to fry potatoes and toast bread. Everyone talked to us; the guy stopping traffic on the highway, people in diners, and baristas in college towns. We made it home just in time. The Ark swallowed the shoes I had packed for the wedding but that was ok. I wore my flowered sneakers instead. And then, we drove back—a month total—of two women On the Road.

And so, April is, for me, a time of migration, of long drives, of chilly mornings, and of talking with strangers.  When the light balances between chilly and warm, right around the equinox of the year, there is nothing I would rather be doing.

               

Hoarding Parsnips

 

                True confessions: I have a hoarding problem. Scrap wood, yarn, nice condiments, clothes I have not worn in years but loved….all very hard to clear out, although I have made a good dent in the scrap wood pile recently. But, right now, my biggest hoard is….parsnips.

                We like parsnips, so, every spring, I direct sow a nice fat ten foot row of parsnip seed, plant out the leeks to one side, the celery and some carrots and beets on the other, and consider it the Winter Soup Bed.  Parsnips thrive much better than carrots or beets. In the fall, we mound leaves around them and wait. First, we eat the last of the zucchini on the vine, which can run into November. Then it’s time for cabbages and winter greens, squashes and onions. Sometimes I think “parsnips?” but the thought of hauling them out of the wet cold soil, knowing that the tips have buried into the subsurface of clay, is daunting, so I wait.  Another day, I assure myself. I do pull some early on sunny winter afternoons, but not many.

                And then we hit late March. It’s early leaf season…all of the cabbages are gone, the few winter squash are no longer sweet, the late potatoes have sprouted and wrinkled, and the onions and garlic are growing a bit soft in the middle. No asparagus yet. Just raabs and leaves at the market. Maybe some radishes but radishes are not a meal. It feels a bit grim.  I walk out to the  Winter Soup bed. There are leeks, looking a little battered by the ice storm in January, but still green. And the parsnips are just beginning to grow little tufts of greens on their heads, so I can see where they all are. I plunge my hands—then the pitchfork—deep into the soil, being careful of the irrigation hose nearby.  I tug. One booted foot in the bed, two hands deep into the slowly warming ground. Tug. Twist. Tug. And it comes loose. A Parsnip.  Big enough for dinner, just one. It’s a glorious moment.

                I see the five foot long line of parsnips before me…soon, I’ll be rummaging through the British cookbooks in the library, looking for the parsnip cake recipe.  And making parsnip soup. And roast parsnips. And parsnips sautéed in butter. And vowing to NOT hoard the parsnips for next year.  We’ll see.

Working Class Irish?

 

      

          The couch has been calling my name lately. The weather has been grim—cold, rainy, muddy, wintry mix—for the last three weeks. We go out during the breaks; we cleaned out the shed yesterday, slogged through snow uphill on the trail last weekend, but the couch…is very attractive.  I’ve been reading a mystery set in Ireland, in a tightly woven working class neighborhood and all I can think of is—how did my English/German family (White and Seckendorf!) learn to be so….working class Irish?

                My grandparents lived, for years, in triple-deckers in Somerville Massachusetts, an architectural  design which I still love. My cousins and I would visit during our school breaks; we’d drink sweet hot tea with my grandmother, wander down the street to the corner store to pick up her cigarettes and some candy, read  or play rummy on the back porch, and fall asleep on the pull out couch to the sound of Boston talk radio at night. I would spend hours rearranging the pantry and occasionally making a boxed cake If I was really lucky, I could walk over to my cousins on my father’s side to visit. They all let me go on my own; I was ten.

                My grandparents were the center for parties, especially in winter. Christmas, New Year’s, Saint Patrick’s day (we went to the parade in South Boston some years), get –togethers  after wakes and funerals….it was all there in the second floor dining rooms. After dinner, cousins ran around in two packs, older and younger, and, as the middle child, I tried to stay small and still at the table, so that I could listen in on the conversation.  The air was thick with cigarette smoke; cans of beer ranged around the table. Three or four aunts, a couple of uncles, and my grandparents  would start with gossip, mild at first and growing juicier as they went into the second beer. By the third, they were ready to sing. They always started with a fragmented version of “”Fling out the flag of Newfoundland” because no one knew all of the words. They moved onto “Cockles and Mussels”, my grandfather would give everyone a ditty about “bedbugs and cockroaches in the Chelsea jail” and then popular songs of the day like “Knock Three Times” or “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head.” No one had a beautiful voice but they could all carry a tune. They sang with gusto. After the third beer, however, they could turn maudlin—count off how many family members had passed over and how many years ago—or nasty. I remember arguments and guilt being thrown around, old grudges emerging from the bottom of the beer. Finally, everyone went home, leaving me and a cousin behind for a few days. Everyone had a hang-over the next day.

                We also had a challenging relationship with the Catholic church. We all attended though First Communion and had our photos taken in the white dress or the serious suit. And then we stopped going. I am not sure why; Sunday mornings were more interesting at home? My mother did not like the priest? It was the late 1960s and church was just not important any longer? We were on the road? But it left its impressions. We had St Christopher medals. I have a drawing of a heart with a crown of thorns that was in my bedroom throughout my childhood. I still know the prayers, the genuflection as you pass the holy water, and  the stations of the cross,  and so a Catholic service feels familiar in a way that others never will. And the guilt. My entire maternal side of the family was a master class in guilt.

                And this—the singing, the drama, the family weight of guilt—all appear in the background of my book. Working class Irish. How did it happen?

               

The Bay Tree

 

               About twenty years ago, when my friend Maureen and I organized organic garden tours for Northwest Earth Institute fund-raising, I bought a bay “tree”. It was about a foot tall; I planted it in a pretty terra-cotta pot and it lived on the front porch, protected from the cold. I picked a leaf or two from it occasionally.  After about five years, we moved it into a wine barrel in the side yard and wrapped it when the temps went below about 25 degrees.  It was a bush.  I nipped leaves for cooking beans and gave it some grey water in the summer.

                When it broke through the barrel, it began to Grow. We stopped watering it in the summer but that did not slow it down. Six feet tall and wide….eight feet tall and wide…I climbed on a ladder and gave it a hard prune and gave away some trimmings. It grew. I pruned it again. Everyone I knew took branches away for their own kitchens.  It grew. I took off half of the tree—it came back with an impressive burst of new growth. It reached into the columnar apple and the tea bush planted (also in barrels) on either side.  The grape vine has sent out feelers to tangle in its branches, creating a bit of a foliar arch into the back yard.  Last year, I trimmed it out of the path to the back yard and stepped out of the way.

                This winter, we have had several ice storms, which bend the branches down. Traditionally, the branches come down for a day or two and then bounce back up to reach for the sky. This year, they, I am afraid, like the new horizontal position.  The birds love the bay; it houses a colony of juncos who wait every morning for me to put out their seed on the ladder. A towhee emerges every day to peck at dropped seeds. They all hide in there when it rains. When the wind blows from the west, as it does eight five percent of the time, the entire tree sways like an animate object, creature with  over one hundred arms, reaching for the sky, the house,  the grape vine, and the plum tree.

                I am not sure what to do with this creature. There are days when it feels like it is going to take over the side yard—but it does not block or shade anything of value. I don’t really want a full sized bay tree; it has been coppiced so often that it does not have a main stem to bring forth as a design feature. But it is a nice green screen.  It does add flavor to all of our soups and stews  in the winter. It blooms. It protects birds. It produces green trimmings for my cuttings of daffodils….and it sways in the breeze at dusk, a living thing just out of the corner of my eye.